


my words will be your light (to carry you to me)

by maviswrites



Series: you belong inside my arms [2]
Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Awkward Romance, BAMF Beth Greene, Beth Greene Lives, Beth Lives, Character Death Fix, Daryl Dixon/Beth Greene Smut, Developing Relationship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Sex, Episode AU: s05e08 Coda (Walking Dead), Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, First Time, Fluff and Smut, Getting Together, Grief/Mourning, Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Porn with Feelings, References to Depression, Reunion Sex, Reunions, Romance, Singing, Unsafe Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-03
Updated: 2019-12-03
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:27:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21652234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maviswrites/pseuds/maviswrites
Summary: Beth looks back at Daryl again, unable to resist, and this time he senses her gaze and looks up to meet her eye. As always, it’s impossible to tell what he’s thinking just from that. She has to look out for that not-smile. It’s a little more nervous than usual, but it’s there, plain on his face. The signs are all there; you just gotta know how to read them. “And you think,” her breath catches on nerves, and she has to try again, turning her gaze back to Michonne. “You think he’ll feel the same way?”“Like I said,” Michonne grins, “it’s not everyday someone you love comes back from the dead.”//Or: Beth survives a bullet to the head, journeys to find her family again, takes a shower with Daryl Dixon, and relearns how to sing.
Relationships: Daryl Dixon/Beth Greene
Series: you belong inside my arms [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1561066
Comments: 14
Kudos: 141





	my words will be your light (to carry you to me)

**Author's Note:**

> "This is my winter song to you  
> The storm is coming soon  
> It rolls in from the sea.  
> My love a beacon in the night  
> My words will be your light  
> To carry you to me.  
> Is love alive?"  
> -Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson, "Winter Song"
> 
> Basically, "Winter Song" is the most Bethyl song to ever exist, and it inspired this fic, which was supposed to be short but ended up becoming monstrously long.
> 
> Could be considered a happy-ending sequel to my other fic, "wanna hear one song without thinking of you," but you don't need to read that first.

She catches him humming, once.

She doesn’t think he even realizes he’s doing it. It’s rare, to catch him so relaxed, and so she doesn’t say anything for a few moments. He’ll hum a bar or two then drop it, as if switching to silently playing it in his head, before resuming it again. Without being able to control it, she finds herself smiling at him.

Eventually, curiosity overtakes her, since she doesn’t recognize the tune at all, and she abruptly asks him, “What song is that?”

Pulled out of his haze, he stiffens and shuts up, and she immediately regrets asking. He adds new fervor to skinning the squirrel he caught for their dinner, and she turns back to the fire she’s tending, unsure why she’s so annoyed with herself.

There’s a long pause. He finally mumbles, “S’a song you’re too young to know.”

“Hey.” She feels minorly offended. “My daddy made sure I grew up on the classics, y’know. Dylan, Springsteen, CCR, Janis Joplin, Allman Brothers Band.”

She feels like if she had to guess Daryl’s music tastes before the dead started walking and everything went to shit, it would probably be rock music, right?

He tilts his head and gives her a look she’s learning to classify as his not-smile. As in, if he were a person who smiled a lot, he’d be smiling. But he’s not that person, so he’s not. His mouth doesn’t turn up, exactly, he just loosens up a little in the face, like he’s not frowning quite so hard. “Ya know Whitesnake?”

That name sounds vaguely familiar, but it takes her a second to pinpoint it. “Um. I think one of Maggie’s exes lent me one of their CDs once?” she offers tentatively. “I think they were a little too… _loud_ for my dad, to be honest.”

It hurts, talking about Daddy, and she wraps her arms around herself even though the fire is burning hot in front of her. Then she notices he’s gone quiet, the way he did outside the moonshine shack just before he started crying. “What’s the song, though? How’s it go?” she asks quickly. “Just ’cause I don’t know it, doesn’t mean I don’t wanna hear it.”

Okay, sue her, it would be nice to hear Daryl sing. He’s so damn throaty, he’s probably not very good, but it would be nice, for once, to hear a voice other than her own try to carry a tune. Just to remind her that other people want to sing—that she’s not alone in the hope that it gives her.

He mumbles something she can’t hear and shoves the skinned squirrel in her direction. Wrinkling her nose, she takes it, and by the time she’s got it heating over the fire and looking back over at where he was sitting, he’s gone. So is his crossbow. When she swivels her head in the other direction, she finds him stalking away into the woods, crossbow slung over his arm, except Daryl’s form of “stalking” is somehow soundless thanks to his ridiculously good hunting and tracking skills.

“Okay,” she says to herself, turning back to the fire. “Maybe later.”

~~

“Why don’t you go ahead and—and play some more. Keep singing.”

He doesn’t phrase it like a question, and so she doesn’t either. “I thought my singing annoyed you.”

But he’s right—there ain't no jukebox, and so she plays, watching him gaze at her out of the corner of her eye. It makes her fumble a little over the keys, sneaking glances at him instead of the piano, but it’s worth it. She’s never seen him look like that before. Never seen him look like that _at her_ before.

_"And I hear the slow in your speech, yeah, you’re half asleep, say goodnight…"_

His eyes are drifting shut by the time she finishes that song with one last _"be good,"_ and so she segues into another one. The next one she chooses is purposefully gentle and quiet, so she doesn’t risk waking him. It’s the first option that pops in her head that she feels like singing, but it requires a lot more complicated piano playing, so she has to take her eyes off of him to look at the keys.

_"This is my winter song to you, the storm is coming soon, it rolls in from the sea… My voice a beacon in the night, my words will be your light, to carry you to me…"_

She risks a look at him. His eyes are closed, head still propped on one arm. His breathing’s even. He looks… almost _sweet_ like this.

_"Is love alive? Is love alive? Is love—"_

He shifts when she ups the tempo, and he’s blinking sleepily at her when she snatches another look at him. Her fingers automatically still, hovering over the keys. “Ready to call it a night?” she asks softly.

“Yeah.”

~~

“I sing. I still sing.”

~~

She wakes up dead.

Or at least, she thought she’d be dead. When the last thing you hear is a gunshot… well. How many options are there?

More than one, apparently.

Beth has always lived her life surrounded by music. When things are scary, her heartbeat is like a constant drumming in her head. When things are exciting, she hears fast-paced piano. When she’s happy and calm, it’s like listening to her momma play the violin all over again.

When she wakes up alone in the trunk of the car, blood matted to her head and dripping lazily into her eyes, it’s just silence. Somehow, that’s the worst part.

It takes a while for her to stagger back into Grady, barely fending off the few walkers lingering near the car she’s been dumped in. (She tries not to let that part—the part where she’s been _left_ —hurt.) There are still some people in the hospital, though not as many as before, and they accept her back easily enough, even though everyone seems stunned that she’s alive despite the bullet in her head. She gets patched up and only realizes when she pats her side that the knife is gone from her belt.

Daryl’s knife.

She swallows and stands, ignoring the intense dizziness that’s begging her to sit back down on the bed.

Edwards looks bewildered. “What are you doing? You shouldn’t be up!”

She steadies herself against the wall and looks up at him fiercely. “I’m getting out of here. I’m finding my family.”

“Dawn is dead,” he says, and his tone doesn’t suggest any emotion, good or bad, to go along with that information. “Your friend killed her when she—when she shot you.”

She grabs a surgical knife from the tray. It’ll have to do, as her weapon. “Which friend?”

“I dunno. The guy with the long hair and the vest.”

Suddenly, her eyes feel hot and heavy in her head, and she doesn’t think it’s just because of the pulsing of her wound. “Daryl?”

“Yeah, I guess.” Edwards crosses his arms over his chest. “Beth, you were shot. In the _head_. It’s a miracle that the bullet missed your brain. You can’t seriously be expecting to leave right now.”

Beth chokes down the feelings associated with Daryl—Daryl, who she barely got to touch and didn’t even get to speak to before everything got all messed up again, and isn’t _that_ just the story of their lives—and shoves the knife into her belt loop where she can grab it easily if needed. “I made my way back to the hospital,” she says firmly, instead of sobbing. “I fought off walkers with an untreated head injury. I can do this.”

The look she gives him must be even more savage than she thought it would be, because he stands to the side and lets her go.

Before she can make it all the way down the hallway, though, he’s following behind, handing her a tiny backpack filled with gauze, bandages, and some sort of pain pills. “They’re expired,” he shrugs, “but it’s the best we have. Take them if the headaches get too bad.”

“Will they make me sleep?”

“Probably. Make sure you’re somewhere safe before you take them. And change the bandages whenever you can.”

She nods and doesn’t thank him out loud. Not after everything that’s happened here.

He stands to the side again, and so do the remaining officers at Grady when she walks out the front doors. _I spend weeks trying to get out of here, and all it took is a couple of gunshots,_ she thinks half-hysterically. _I wonder what they did with Dawn’s body._

It’s the last thought she’s going to let herself think of Grady. From now on, everything is about finding her family.

~~

Tracking is _hard_. Especially with people.

Alone with Daryl, she’d gotten pretty good at the odd buck or lone walker. When there’s just one, that’s something entirely different. But this is a group of people, and occasionally they have cars, and when they’re walking, they’re trying extra hard not to snap twigs or tread loudly to avoid gaining the attentions of walkers… Suffice to say, it’s difficult. And it’s boring, without any songs in her head.

But she can’t give up.

(Daryl’s tracks are easily distinguishable from the others. For one thing, he barely leaves any. For another, he stands separate from the rest of the group, to the side and trailing slightly behind to protect the rear. She may not be able to identify anyone else, but she’s pretty sure these are his.)

She tries to sing. Her songs don’t come out quite right, like she can’t remember the words. For a terrifying, frantic moment, she’s worried about brain damage from the bullet. But then she realizes. She just doesn’t want to sing.

Possibly for the first time in her life—even after she sliced her wrist open, she knew she could sing for a few minutes of relief from her pain—she doesn’t want to sing. She just wants her _family_.

Christ, she never even got to see Maggie.

It gives her determination, honestly. Maybe it would be easier to sit down and cry, or go find a bottle of moonshine somewhere, or play a piano until her fingers ache and hope her internal song comes back. She could go do all of those things. But it wouldn’t get her home any faster. Home to her people.

So she keeps trudging forward. She can’t lose the tracks, after all.

~~

She loses them. They found enough cars to all get in one and drive away, she guesses, and it’s close to a four-way stop, and she has no idea which direction they took. And her head aches so bad that she needs a pill.

It’s a bad day.

~~

There are other bad days. Then again, there are also some decent ones. Not good, but decent.

She hums a few bars under her breath, pleased to note that they don’t sound terrible. Maybe she won’t sing, then. Maybe she’ll just hum. She can do that.

~~

Weeks pass. Months. She has no idea where they are, only that she has to keep going until she finds them.

Ever so slowly, she starts to make her way north. Rick had mentioned D.C. a couple of times, and even if they haven’t gone there, maybe they’re somewhere close by. They’ve made their run-around of Georgia, at least, and she doesn’t think they’d have gone south to Florida, even if that does make for a pretty disturbingly hilarious visual of retiree walkers fending off alligators.

(There’s a possibility that she’s going insane from being alone for so long. She doesn’t like to think about it.)

Her wound heals, and her hair grows back over it, and she’s grateful, she is, but God, she wishes she could _sing_. Humming gets boring. More than that, she wishes she could find her people. Hell, if they knew she was alive, Maggie would probably hit an operatic high C from shock.

(Definitely going the slightest bit insane, she notes.)

She makes her way through South and then North Carolina, avoiding the main roads and ducking through the rural areas as best she can. It’s hard, sneaking into abandoned rest stops and stealing maps, using the “You Are Here” symbol to figure out what direction she’s heading in. For a while, she drifts too far east, and the daydreamer-poet in her (the one that won’t die no matter _what_ happens to her, and for that she’s grateful too) briefly insists on going to the beach.

But after a second’s thought, that’s probably the worst idea she could ever have, so she doesn’t. Just keeps heading north.

Occasionally, she’ll run into other survivors. None have been worth sticking around to speak to for more than a minute, though she’s glad she hasn’t run into any creeps as of yet.

She’s getting very good at killing walkers. Some get drawn in by the sound of her humming, though she’s careful not to be too loud, and she could stop but that’s not a concession she’s willing to make. She needs music to keep her distracted.

Eventually, she finds herself in Virginia.

(Noah’s family is in Virginia. She remembers him telling her that much. Maybe that’s where the group went. Even if they just dropped him off, she can find him, and maybe he can tell her where to go next.)

She steels herself to search for Noah’s community, then, even though the details he’d told her are fuzzy in her brain. Details get like that, sometimes, when she makes herself go on for too long. She rubs the side of her head and examines the remaining pills of the ones Edwards gave her. She’s only used them in emergencies, and those have been thankfully few and far between, but she’s pushed herself hard these last couple of days to get North Carolina behind her, and if she keeps going today, she’ll almost definitely need one tonight.

Best not to waste the pill, she decides. She curls herself up in a ball in the locked back room of a grocery store—practically cleaned out, but she found a can of beans that’s sitting in her backpack now—and tries to sleep.

She wakes up with a gun in her face.

“The fuck you doing, girl, sleeping in a grocery store?” a deep baritone voice asks her.

She looks up, still mindful of the gun. The man holding it is huge, with a shock of bright red hair and a frankly weird looking mustache, and she feels a twinge of fear go through her. He really is _huge_ , and she hasn’t had to defend herself against a living human in a while. If he tries to hurt her…

The man sees her hand twitch toward the knife at her belt, and he stops, moving the barrel of the gun slightly to the left of her face. “Relax, girl, I’m not gonna shoot ya,” he tells her, with an inappropriately wry grin on his face. “Just wanted to check you out.”

“I’m fine,” she says, wishing her voice sounded stronger. “You can go.”

He laughs, then, and she thinks that he might be a bit of an asshole. “No way, girly! You think I’m just gonna go? No way. C’mon, why don’t you stand up and tell me a little about yourself. Don’t worry, I’m not gonna hurt you.”

She takes advantage of him letting her do so to stand, resting her hand securely on the hilt of her blade. If she needs it, she’ll just have to draw quickly. “What do you want, then?”

“Just to ask you a few questions. What’s your name?”

She cuts her eyes at him, trying to look vicious. “None of your business.”

“Fine, fine,” he raises his hands in surrender. “Don’t tell me. Not an important question, anyway. How many walkers you killed?”

This sounds familiar. “Too many to count,” she answers, wary. If this turns out to be someone who just has the same taste in questions as Rick, she doesn’t wanna get her hopes up.

“How many—”

“Abraham! What are you doing back there? This place is cleaned out, let’s go!” a woman says, popping into the backroom. They make eye contact.

All of a sudden, Beth stops breathing.

Sasha does, too. For a moment, they just stare at each other, the silence heavy in the room, before the guy—Abraham—catches on. “What, y’all know each other?” he asks.

“ _Beth?_ ” Sasha asks incredulously, ignoring him. Her eyes fill up with tears. “How—”

Beth shrugs, pushing past the burning feeling behind her eyes. “Just lucky, I guess. Been looking for y’all for months now.”

“Oh my God,” Sasha says, scrubbing a hand under her eyes to catch her tears. She reaches forward to wrap an arm around Beth, and Beth lets her. “I can’t believe you’re alive. Maggie’s gonna… Christ, we have to get you home.”

She’s been going for so long she’s surprised that, at the moment she’s found part of her family, her legs don’t collapse out from under her. But she stays upright, and lets Sasha lead her out with a gentle arm around her shoulders, Abraham following behind and asking questions.

“She was the—the girl that got shot outside that hospital, remember? We had to leave her in a car trunk. We all thought she was dead,” Sasha says quietly, even though Beth’s right next to them both and her hearing’s just fine.

Abraham is the one to look incredulous now. “You survived a headshot?” he asks Beth, before recovering. He snickers. “Damn, girl, you’d make one terrifying walker.”

“Not now, Abe,” Sasha snaps, guiding Beth out of the store and into a nearby truck.

“So, everyone’s alive?” she asks faintly. She doesn’t feel quite… real. It’s as though she’s entered into a hazy dream.

Sasha grimaces as the truck comes to life around them, and she starts driving. Beth is squished between her and Abraham—this truck is only made for two riders—but she lets herself enjoy the sensation of human touch. “Not everyone. Tyreese is gone.”

“Oh.” She touches a hand to her chest in reflex. “I’m sorry.”

“Thanks.” Sasha directs a guilty look her way. “Noah’s gone, too. Happened just a few weeks ago.”

Christ. She crumples a little bit against Sasha’s arm, wishing the other woman could take her hands off the wheel to hug her. She takes a second to just breathe before forcing herself past it. _Poor Noah._ “What about everyone else?” she asks.

“Maggie’s alive,” Sasha answers quickly.

“Good,” Beth exhales. “What about Glenn, Rick, Michonne, Carol, Judith? …What about Daryl?”

Sasha directs an unreadable glance her way, before turning her attention back to the road. “All alive, at least when we left this morning. It’s a good community we’ve got going on, I guess. A little Stepford, but everyone’s relatively safe, at least.”

She crumples even more, but this time for a different reason. There’s a tiny little smile wobbling on her face.

And for the first time in months, there’s a song in her head.

_You gotta hold on, I’m standing right here, you gotta hold on…_

~~

When Maggie sees Beth standing at the gates of Alexandria with Sasha and Abraham, she screams and falls to her knees.

Standing upright, looking down at her big sister, Beth can’t help but feel a little uncomfortable. Maggie’s always been the strong one. Now she’s weeping at her feet, drawing in the attention of everyone else in the community.

The others react just as violently, even if there’s no one else screaming and crying as much. Carol cries into her shoulder for about a minute, before pulling back so Rick can hug her. Glenn wraps her up in his arms and lifts her until her toes just barely brush the ground. Once she stands, Maggie doesn’t let go of her hand for one second, still sobbing like her heart’s gonna break.

Beth feels bad for being the one not to cry, but maybe that’s just because she’s been too empty for it for such a long time. Besides, she doesn’t want to cry right now. This needs to be a happy memory.

The only other person in the family who doesn’t tear up in some way, shape, or form is Daryl. Instead, he fixes her with that look she’s never quite been able to decipher, his fingers digging into the wood of his bow. She looks back… and sees something new in him.

His hair is longer than she’s ever seen it, and it’s filthy. Even filthier than hers, and she’s been living on the run for months. She can’t remember the last time she washed her hair, and yet he looks worse, caked in dirt. His eyes look almost hollow, dark circles hanging underneath them.

But when she holds his gaze, she can see his face doing that loosening thing, that not-smiling thing she was so proud of herself for figuring out when they were alone together.

He not-smiles at her, and a grin breaks over her face.

It takes a second to persuade Maggie to let her go—“just a sec, Mags, honest, I’m sorry”—and then she’s pulling away from the crowd that’s surrounding her. After so long being alone, it’s a bit overwhelming to have so many people around, and she finds herself letting out a breath of relief as she staggers away to the corner of the yard where Daryl’s isolated himself.

As she enters his space, he opens his mouth as if to speak. She doesn’t give him the chance, throwing her arms around him in a way she hasn’t gotten to do since the funeral home. She squeezes her hold around his waist, waiting for him to cup her elbow or mutter something and pull away.

He doesn’t. Instead, his hands slip tentatively over her shoulders before gripping her tightly. If she thought—in those wildest moments where she dared to imagine what it would be like to find everyone again—that he’d cradle her, hold her gently, then she was wrong. This is the grip of a man who won’t let go again. Yet somehow, it still feels tender. No matter how tight he holds her, it could never hurt. Not if Daryl’s the one doing it.

“Carried you out,” he says lowly into her ear, the first words he’s spoken since she got out of Sasha’s truck and everyone saw her and collectively lost their minds. “Of that hospital.”

“I know,” she whispers, even though she hadn’t officially known. It had just been a feeling. “I’m here now.”

He crushes her to him, and she can’t bring herself to mind, since she’d rather take another bullet than let go right now. “Christ, _Beth_ ,” his voice breaks on her name. “You really are, aren’t you?”

“It’s not a dream. Unless you and me are having the same one.”

He nods, and she can feel it from where his chin is pressed into her hair. They don’t stop holding on for a long time.

~~

It’s been an exhausting few hours, emotionally more than physically. Maggie’s still been reluctant to let her out of her sight—more like panicked, really. She’s been introduced to nearly everyone in Alexandria as the girl who lived, like they’re in some weird Harry Potter Bizarro world with walkers instead of wizards.

(She thinks, at this point, she’d have preferred Voldemort over Dawn with a gun.)

Her homecoming becomes an unofficial party, set up in the house where Maggie and Glenn are living. She sits on the couch and bounces the baby in her lap. Seeing Judith again has been the thing that’s brought her closest to tears, and she cups her hand around the back of Judith’s head with reverence.

“She’s getting bigger every day,” Michonne says proudly, plopping herself down on the couch next to Beth.

Nearby, everyone is milling around, and Glenn is standing next to Maggie in the corner. Maggie has her eyes locked on Beth, though she’s backed off a little. Probably because she was getting dehydrated with all the crying, and she needed to take a step back. Still, she’s not looking away anytime soon, as though Beth is gonna disappear on her.

In a while, that’s probably going to get annoying, but for now Beth is too damn happy to care.

Beth can’t resist hugging Judy and keeping her awake, even though it’s definitely nearing the little girl’s bedtime. “I missed her. I missed everybody, of course, but...”

“But there’s something about a baby,” Michonne finishes, smiling in acknowledgment. Never one to beat around the bush, she rubs a thumb across Judith’s cheek lovingly before asking, “So, where are you staying tonight?”

Beth smiles. “Probably with Maggie, judging by the way she’s watching me like a hawk.”

“Hey, it’s not everyday someone you love comes back from the dead.” Michonne studies her, pondering. “But is that where you _wanna_ stay?”

Beth follows the unsubtle jerk of Michonne’s chin with her eyes, to where Daryl is lurking in a corner. Well, “lurking” is probably an impolite way of putting it. But it’s what he does. His fingers are drumming against the outside of his thigh, which she knows is his signal for desperately wanting a cigarette. He’s oblivious to her watching him, staring at his shoes instead; he’s always so intent on not making eye contact with anyone. Slowly, Beth drags her eyes back to Michonne, who has an indecipherable look on her face.

So she’s that obvious, huh?

“I’m guessin’ you’re gonna tell me that’s a bad idea?” Beth says wryly. “Well, I don’t care. I didn’t come back from all of what happened, just to not be myself, just to not let myself want what I want.”

Michonne doesn’t look unhappy. In fact, there’s the edge of smile on her lips. “I say go for it.” She claps a hand on Beth’s shoulder and takes Judith in her arms. “I think it’ll turn out all right, in the end. Didn’t used to be so optimistic, but. Here we are.”

Beth looks back at Daryl again, unable to resist, and this time he senses her gaze and looks up to meet her eye. As always, it’s impossible to tell what he’s thinking just from that. She has to look out for that not-smile. It’s a little more nervous than usual, but it’s there, plain on his face. The signs are all there; you just gotta know how to read them. “And you think,” her breath catches on nerves, and she has to try again, turning her gaze back to Michonne. “You think he’ll feel the same way?”

“Like I said,” Michonne grins, standing to take Judy back to her father, “it’s not everyday someone you love comes back from the dead.”

Watching Michonne walk away, she realizes she has two choices. She can stay here, in this house with Maggie and Glenn, and slowly slip into a routine where Maggie keeps an eye on her at all times and she never has a chance to have _this_ , whatever _this_ is, with Daryl. Or she can make a clean break, right now, and go after it.

Resolved, she stands up herself.

Daryl looks at her with veiled interest and confusion when she approaches him. “Hey,” he grunts lowly, “what—”

Before he gets any farther, she takes him by the hand, the one that’s scrabbling at the edges of his jeans pocket where she knows he’s got a pack of Marlboros tucked away. “C’mon,” she says, and his grip is slack in hers with surprise, but he follows her, trailing slightly behind.

Maggie and Glenn are openly staring at the two of them when they come up, though how much of that’s being stunned and how much is just because they’ve been keeping an eye on Beth this whole time, she doesn’t know. Regardless, she swallows and decides not to show any weakness. It’s just like dealing with a walker.

Okay, bad analogy.

“What’s up?” Glenn greets them, trying and failing to act casual. His eyes keep darting to where Beth’s hand is linked with Daryl’s.

“Think I’m gonna stay with Daryl tonight,” Beth says cheerily, as though they do this everyday.

Daryl’s hand spasms in hers. She doesn’t turn around to see the look on his face, afraid of what it might be. She just cinches her hold, threading their fingers together. After a second, he folds his fingers through hers and does the same.

“What?” Maggie’s face is pinched with worry. “Bethy, are you sure you don’t wanna stay with—”

“I’m sure,” she tells her firmly. “Thank you, Maggie, but I need this. I’ll see you in the morning, okay? I promise.” On her tiptoes, she leans forward to press a kiss to her sister’s forehead.

Maggie accepts the forehead kiss wordlessly, her mouth open in an “O." Beth doesn’t wait for her to find a reason to protest, turning on her heel with a “Night, Glenn!” thrown over her shoulder and walking towards the door.

Daryl follows behind—not that he has much of a choice with her holding on to him—and she’s acutely aware of the looks they’re getting.

“You’re staying with Aaron and Eric, right?” she asks, not looking back at him as they reach the door. She feels a twinge of fear that, if she looks back and makes eye contact with him, he’ll tell her off for making assumptions or embarrassing him or putting him on the spot like that. If she looks back, he’ll be lost to her. Like she’s Orpheus and he’s Eurydice.

After a second, he tosses back a “Yeah” that sounds more like an echo than an actual thought. Like he’s in shock.

She pulls him through the door, down from the porch, and a few houses down to the one that she thinks from her brief tour earlier might be the right one. “This it?” she asks, turning slightly to face him. She still avoids looking at him.

“Yeah,” he repeats hollowly.

“All right.” She sighs and braces herself. They can’t go any farther until she knows. She moves, catching his eye, and rubs her thumb across his palm. “Sorry I did that without asking you, I just—had to do it before I lost my nerve. Is this okay?”

He looks down at where she’s gesturing between the two of them with her free hand. “Is what okay?”

“Just—this. Me, grabbing you like that in front of everybody. Spending the night with you.” She feels compelled to rush out her excuses, like he’ll interrupt her if she doesn't, even though Daryl never interrupts ’cause he’s always too busy listening and learning. “We don’t have to—I’m just here to sleep, honest.”

She’s imagining it, she knows, but it almost seems as though he deflates a little at her words. “Oh?”

“Well,” she shifts her weight from foot to foot. “I figure, if I end up staying with Maggie and Glenn, I’ll get locked up. Like some princess in a tower. Never get to see any of y’all again. That’d be a shame, y’know?”

He huffs out a laugh and reaches for that blessed pack of cigarettes, drawing one out and holding it between his lips. Instead of letting go of her hand so he can have both of his free, he puts the pack back in his pocket and retrieves his lighter one-handed. Then, he’s lighting the cigarette that looks like it’s just about to slip out of his mouth, he’s got it held between his lips so loosely.

“Finally,” she blurts, feeling warm. And yes, it’s warm outside, but not _that_ warm, and knowing that just makes her blush worse. “You just, you looked like you were gonna jump out of your skin without one of those, back at the party,” she adds when he looks at her curiously.

“Would hate for you to get locked away,” he mutters around the cigarette, ignoring her ramble, for which she’s grateful. “Just got you back.”

She brightens a little. “That means I can stay?”

“Yeah.” He exhales, and she watches the tiny puff of smoke that accompanies it get blown away in the slight breeze. “S’all right, what you did. Back at the party. Just surprised me.”

She smiles. “Okay. Next time I’ll give you a heads-up.”

He coughs a little around the smoke. “Next—” he stops, clears his throat. “Look, y’wanna go inside?”

“We can,” she says softly. It’s warm out here, and comfortable, and she knows they’d be just fine to sit out on the porch and talk for a while if that’s what he wants. Or they could go inside and confront everything that comes with that.

His fingers flex around hers, and she looks down, a little startled to remember that they’re still holding hands. “Yeah, let’s go inside,” he murmurs.

There’s a part of her that can’t quite figure out what he’s feeling—his tone is unbelievably gentle, but she needs to see his face to confirm her suspicions. She looks back up again, finding the same intensity that was in his eyes that night at the funeral home.

_(“What changed your mind?”)_

Is it too much to hope that he’s feeling what she thinks he’s feeling? This thing she’s felt for so long?

By the time she realizes what it is he’s said, he’s extinguishing the cigarette under the heel of his shoe and lightly pulling her up the stairs. “Aaron and Eric’re still at the party,” he says. “Y’wanna shower?”

“Oh, God, do I.” She tugs at the limpness of her ponytail with her free hand, grimacing. “Where’s the sink?”

His eyes glint with mirth at her as he opens the screen door and pulls her inside. “Girl, we got hot water here. And a real shower.”

“Oh, my Lord, you got me all excited now,” she breathes. She surveys the scene. The house looks a lot like Maggie and Glenn’s, which she marveled at when they first brought her into it, but it feels different, too. Surprisingly domestic, for Daryl Dixon. Must be Aaron and Eric’s influence. “Fancy setup here, then.”

“Yeah, s’nice,” he mumbles back at her. “C’mon, shower’s upstairs.”

He brings her up the staircase, his hand wrapped delicately around her wrist now instead of having their fingers twisted and tangled together. She’s not sure when that happened, but she’s not complaining either. When they reach the top, he guides her to a bedroom—his, she realizes from its austerity—that has an adjoining bathroom.

“Towel’s hung up next to the shower.” He lets go of her hand to cross his arms over his chest. “Just put it back up when you’re done, m’going in after you.”

She blinks, a little sad that he’s let go of her, before a playful smile overtakes her. “Thought you were enjoying the whole grungy caveman look,” she teases.

Daryl shuffles his feet. “Just wanna get clean, s’all.”

She nods, taking a step toward the bathroom, then abruptly stops when a thought comes into her head. Suddenly, she’s hyperaware of her breathing, of his breathing, of the way she can feel his eyes pounding into her back. Suddenly, she’s got an idea.

Elizabeth Greene has never been one for moderation, no matter how much her daddy preached it. In a way, she’s just like sister. Find something she wants, and she’ll go from zero to one hundred without much warning to get it, whether it’s a damn drink or… or something else.

Christ, but she doesn’t wanna push him, doesn’t wanna scare him off. But _this_. This is her chance.

“You gettin’ in or what?” he asks her dryly.

“S’just.” She swallows, hard, before turning back to face him. “Seems like a waste of hot water, don’t it?”

“What?” he looks at her, raising an eyebrow. “You tryna tell me you don’t wanna shower?”

“No!” she bursts out. “I mean. I do. We both do. So…” she trails off, hoping he’ll get the hint. He just raises the other eyebrow. She sighs and runs a hand through her messy ponytail. Best to just go for it, she decides. “C’mon, Daryl, just get in the shower with me.”

“ _What?!_ ”

All things considered, he reacted better than she expected. Of course, she’s hardly ever known Daryl to raise his voice above a whisper or a mumble—except when he’s drunk or someone's in danger—and so this is one of the loudest times she’s ever heard him speak. He doesn’t look upset though, or offended, or grossed out.

In fact, she thinks as she studies him, he looks like he’s being very careful _not_ to show anything on his face at all. And his chest is going up and down way too fast, his breathing erratic.

“Daryl,” she says quietly, moving toward him.

He shies away slightly, like a spooked horse.

She keeps going until she can latch onto one of his arms, where he’s still got them both crossed over his chest. Slowly, he lets her pull it down until it hangs at his side, and she grabs at it and tangles their fingers together so they’re holding hands again. “You can say no,” she tells him. “I’ll understand. But Daryl, don’t say no just because you think I don’t want you. This’s my idea.”

“Don’t know what the hell you think you’re doing,” he says, but there’s no venom in his words. He sounds wooden, like this is what he thinks he’s supposed to say.

“I want you,” she replies, “and I want you _with me_ , and I’m tryna get you to get in the shower with me. Whaddaya say?”

Daryl looks at her very steadily, but she can feel his fingers trembling minutely in her grasp. “What’s this about?”

She lets her breath go out evenly, very conscious of scaring him off, and tries to keep her words calm and not rushed. “It’s about _us_ , don’t you think? ’Bout the way I look at you and the way you… the way you looked at me, back at the funeral home. And before, on the porch of that shack. Before we lit it on fire.” As she speaks, she starts edging forward, slowly, until she’s in his space. She only has to tilt her head up slightly to feel his breath on her cheek. “Daryl, we were _together_ and then I was gone from you and then you and the others were gone from me… but I never stopped thinking about you. Even after getting a bullet pulled out of my head, I still left that hospital to come looking for you.”

“And the others, yeah?” he croaks out.

“ _You_ ,” she insists. “The second I woke up in that hospital—the first time, right after the funeral home—I asked about you. I love the others, of course I do, but I was getting free to find _you_.”

Before she can keep going—and she does have more to say, if he needs to hear it—his face is bending down closer to hers, something intent in his eyes. She stops talking, unsure.

Then, his lips are crushing down on hers.

She stiffens for a second, before smiling so hard it almost breaks the kiss.

It’s a hard kiss, slightly awkward from the way they’re standing too close together and the way he’s unwilling to stop kissing her even a little to move away and find a better angle. She leans into it anyway, stretching up on her tiptoes to kiss him back. His arm goes lightly around her waist, not pulling her in too tightly, probably for fear of hurting her. He tastes like the too-warm bottle of wine Maggie had opened to celebrate Beth coming back, the one everyone had only had a sip of before it ran out. Beneath that, he tastes like himself, like smoke and canned peaches.

She’s able to cup his jaw in her hand and tilt his head so that they slot together better, feeling the tip of his nose press against her cheek. He inhales, and she presses deeper into the kiss, pushing her tongue into his mouth. Abruptly, he stifles a little sharp sound that on anyone else would’ve been a moan, but no—Daryl Dixon forces himself to have too much self-control for that. (For now, anyway. She’ll get a moan out of him yet.)

She resists the urge to smile, and she tries to do whatever she did the first time again. Anything to get him to make that noise again.

After a second, she breaks them apart, dropping her head to rest on his shoulder while she catches her breath. Immediately, his other arm comes up to wrap around her shoulders while his first one remains around her waist, effectively holding her against him. She exhales heavily, feeling a laugh bubbling in her chest. She represses it and, after a second, looks up to meet his eyes.

As usual, he looks like he’s got a thousand words trapped in there, and he’s only communicating it to her with a look. But this is a look she can easily read, from the way his hands won’t hold on to her too tight to the way he looks too unnerved to blink.

He’s scared. Whether it’s of this kiss, or of frightening her away, she doesn’t know.

Humor has never been one of her fortes, and it’s not like it’s easy to get Daryl Dixon to laugh even in the most lighthearted of moments, so she doesn’t try to deflect. Instead, she detaches herself from his arms and steps back, taking care to extend a hand to him so he doesn’t think she’s running away. “Ready to get clean?” she asks simply.

He reaches forward and takes her offered hand, visibly swallowing. “Yeah,” he rasps out. His lips are swollen and pink from her kiss.

Beth uses her other hand to open the bathroom door, pulling him in behind her. He reaches into the shower and turns the knob and, while he’s turned away, she tugs off her clothes. By the time he’s turned back, her shirt’s off and her pants are unbuttoned.

His jaw doesn’t drop—Daryl could never be that melodramatic—but she does see the way his breathing quickens. “Y’sure?” he asks.

Christ, she could kiss him. She does just that, leaning up and running a hand through his hair to cup the back of his head and pull him forward to her. It’s a quick kiss, just a press of their lips, but she’s smiling when she breaks it. “I’m sure.”

As she drops her pants, then her panties, there’s a song running through her head, and she almost feels like she could sing again. She pulls her hair out of its ponytail and tries to ignore the way it practically stands up on its own. In front of her, Daryl hesitates for a second before unzipping his jeans.

_At night I wake up with the sheets soaking wet, and a freight train running through the middle of my head, only you can cool my desire…_

“Oh, oh, oh, I’m on fire,” she murmurs as she watches him unbutton his shirt.

“S’that?” he asks, distracted as he fumbles with the buttons.

She steps closer and handles the last few buttons—he drops his hands to his sides to let her. “S’nothing,” she responds, looking down at his chest as she pushes the shirt over his shoulders and down his arms until it drops to the floor. “Just a song I like.”

“Springsteen?” he asks, a glint in his eye.

Beth laughs. “Yeah. My momma used to love Springsteen, she’d play all his songs, but whenever this one came up, she’d blush red like a fire engine. Wasn’t ’til I was older I figured out why.”

He smirks a little at that, shoving his boxers down to his ankles and stepping out of them. At that moment, she realizes this is happening. They’re standing naked outside of a shower, and she fought a bullet in the head to get back to them, back to _him_ …

“Let’s get in,” she says softly, placing a hand on his chest.

Once inside, they’re actually very methodical; though it really isn’t that unexpected, given how rare hot water is in this world. She scrubs herself with soap as he washes his hair, then they switch. As she’s washing the last of the shampoo out of her hair, though, facing toward the spray, she feels the ghost of a kiss on the back of her shoulder. A smile reaches her lips, and she turns to find herself in his arms.

“Lemme get the rest of that,” he says, voice low, and she tilts her head back willingly. The pads of his fingers, rough and warm, come to rest on her scalp as he smooths her hair back and gets it clean. For a second, his fingers brush the rough scarring on her scalp, and he inhales sharply.

“Doesn’t hurt,” she says, before he can say or do anything to pull them out of this moment, out of the way the space between her thighs heats up at his innocent touch. “Keep going.”

When he doesn’t, still hesitating, she leans forward and lightly kisses the hollow of his throat. He shudders, and she smiles before kissing the same spot again.

“S’gonna leave a hickey,” his words stumble out of his mouth, as though he hasn’t had time to think about them. “Then your sister’ll kill me.”

“Doubt it,” she murmurs against his skin, before sucking against the spot. “She’ll only kill you if there’s a hickey on _me_.”

He shudders again when she deepens the kiss, before his hand threads itself into her hair and gently tugs her back. She lets him, until her chin is tilted upward, and he just barely has to lean down to kiss her.

“Mm,” she says appreciatively when he pulls back. “Are we clean?”

Daryl smiles at her use of the word “we.” “Guess so,” he rumbles.

“Good. ’Cause I got plans.”

“Plans?” he quirks an eyebrow.

“Plans that involve us getting out of this shower.” She turns the handle and the spray abruptly stops. Opening the shower door, she retrieves the towel and faces him. “Lemme get you.”

He opens his mouth as if to protest, but she doesn’t give him a chance, wrapping the towel around his shoulders and rubbing him dry. The towel—and her hands—travel down his chest, then his waist, then his legs. As she kneels in front of him, she notices he’s hard—has been this whole time—but she chooses to ignore it, for now. Better to build it up.

She finishes with his body, standing and urging him down so she can run the towel through his hair. As soon as he’s dry, or close enough, she brings the towel to her own body, efficiently drying herself off. While she does so, Daryl steps out and gathers their clothes from where they’ve been hastily tossed aside on the bathroom floor. He sets them down on the closed toilet lid and runs his fingers through his damp hair.

Meanwhile, she’s pulling her hair into a hurried braid, wanting to keep it from dripping it all over the place. The whole time, she’s watching him.

As he turns back to her, he notices and stiffens. Probably because, with him having had his back to her like this, she’s had full view of the scars.

Beth bites her lip. It’s not as though the scars are news to her—when he got hurt that time on the farm, back when she barely knew him at all, she had helped Maggie and Daddy take care of him. But it’s the first time she’s seen them since he came to mean so much to her.

But if she knows Daryl even a little bit, she knows exactly how sensitive this is for him. What’s the best way to do this? Acknowledge them and assure him they don’t change things? Ignore them entirely?

She exits the shower, draping the towel over the hook next to it, and locks eyes with him. His breathing is heavier, whether from lust or anxiety or some combination of both. She approaches him steadily and wraps a hand around his wrist. “Come on,” she urges. “Let’s go to bed.”

“I—” his voice tightens, constricting in his throat, and he looks at her. Really seeing her.

A lot of the people closest to her have looked at her today, a variety of emotions on their faces. They’ve studied her, trying to figure out how she’s there, standing in front of them. They’ve cried at the sight of her.

But just like always, Beth has never felt quite so _seen_ as when Daryl’s the one seeing her.

She doesn’t know what exactly it is that he sees—there are some secrets he’s always kept to himself—but whatever it is makes him relax a little, and he does a tremulous version of that not-smile thing. “Okay.”

He follows her out of the bathroom and into the bedroom, and by the time they reach the bed he’s kissing her breathless again. They stumble over the edge of the bed and he falls flat on his back on the sheets, her on top of him. Together, they crawl on their hands and knees up to the top of the bed, where they can lay on the pillows. He flips the switch on the lamp hurriedly, just so they can see what they’re doing.

For a few minutes, they make out, and she feels like the giddy teenager she never got to be. His mouth is so warm and wet, and the taste of cigarettes has faded away. At the moment, all she can taste is herself, and that’s what brings a grin to her face. “I missed you,” she murmurs against him, and he stops abruptly.

“Yeah,” he finally says after a long pause, and then he’s climbing down her body until his mouth is level with her cunt.

“What’re you doing down there?” she asks, somewhat nervously but trying to play it off.

“What’s it look like?” he mutters. “I was gonna…” He sighs and flaps his arm vaguely, suddenly looking just as awkward as she feels. “Y’know. Eat you. If you want.”

She stifles the urge to giggle and touches his arm lightly. “I would love that. Some other time. But right now,” she adds, “I kinda want you inside me, if that’s okay.”

He swallows convulsively and clambers back up before she can say another word. “ _Christ_ , girl, you’re gonna kill me,” he hisses out with clenched teeth.

“Sweet death, though, yeah?” she teases, kissing her way down his chest.

His hand is startling, pressed up against her as he gently pushes a finger inside. His hand is _warm_ to the point of surprise, even though she feels sweltering hot and slippery wet down there, and he goes so slowly she thinks she might die. Eager to speed things up, she lays a hand on his wrist and squeezes it insistently until he adds a second finger, and then a third.

She’s ready. She’s _been_ ready since the moment she took his hand at the party. “Come on,” she breathes out, looking at his lips. “Please?”

He lines himself up and pushes into her, still going extra slowly, as though afraid she’ll cry out or ask him to stop. She appreciates that, she does, but at the same time she knows that even a walker bursting through the door would only halfway make her want to stop. Hell, Maggie could stride in right now and she’d still hesitate before pulling away from him. Besides, she's so wet it barely even burns.

When he’s in to the hilt, he stops and lets out a messy exhale, which she takes as her cue to take stock. All things considered, it’s only a little bit of a stretch, and he makes her feel warm and full. After her body’s had a minute to take in this change, she tentatively begins to move, wrapping her arms and legs around him to draw him in even closer.

“ _Stop,_ ” he gasps out, turning away so that his face is partly hidden behind his still-damp hair. “Just—wait a second.”

She does. “All right?” she asks, worried.

“Just want this t’last for more than a minute,” he mutters, cupping the back of her head underneath her braid with his hand. He kisses her, slow and sweet, until her toes curl. Even as he begins to move, he keeps on kissing her, his hands moving to gain purchase in the mattress and hold himself up so he doesn’t crush her.

Again, she appreciates his forethought into making her comfortable, but she wants to be as close to him as possible. One of her hands leaves his side to hold his face, as though touch alone will keep this from ending. He starts to pump into her in earnest, and she gasps into the kiss before diving back into it. There’s a part of her that doesn’t want this to stop, but another part of her that wants to speed up to the end, when she knows it will feel _so_ good.

“Beth,” he murmurs against her lips, but she keeps kissing him. “Beth?”

The second utterance of her name causes her to pull back ever so slightly, looking him in the eye. His lips are parted and so swollen they look like they must hurt, and he’s right—he _will_ have a hickey on his throat, come morning. His hair is starting to dry but it looks an awful mess, no thanks to her constantly running her fingers through it. The look in his eyes is unreadable, but she figures lust must play a part in it, given how fast his hips are snapping against her now.

“What?”

He lets out a heavy breath against her cheek. “This is—this is real, yeah?”

The question both takes her aback and breaks her heart, and she wishes he didn't have a legitimate reason to ask it. “It’s real,” she whispers.

His movement has slowed but not stopped completely. “How’m I supposed to know?” he asks, gazing at her, and for once, his face is an open book. This time, instead of just feeling seen, _she_ sees _him_. That confusion, that fear, that dread that she’s going to slip away again.

They’re the same things she’s felt ever since she woke up alone in the trunk of that car. She doesn’t feel them anymore, now that she’s safe with her family, but she knows it must be hard for him not to keep feeling it. At any moment, this could turn out to be a dream.

“There was a song you were humming once, at one of our campfires after the prison,” she tells him. “I asked you what it was, but you never said. I still don’t know what it was. Now tell me, if this was was in your head, if _I_ was just your imagination, wouldn’t I know?”

The look he gives her is startlingly open, and his eyes are wide and wet. His only response is to let his lips crash against hers. She kisses back, grabbing his hand and bringing it to one of her breasts, his thumb slowly rubbing across her nipple in a stunningly gentle gesture. His rocking inside of her grows faster and more desperate, and she feels herself slowly creeping toward bliss. She clenches her walls around him, and he gives that moan she was so determined to hear earlier, his head buried in her shoulder as he thrusts faster and faster.

Her fingers dig in to the back of his neck, as though she can pull him in any closer, and one final thrust has her crying out even as he groans and hurriedly pulls out. Something warm and wet spills over her thigh, but she’s too dazed to care.

For a few moments they just lay there, chests heaving, before eventually he withdraws his head from her shoulder and makes to get up.

“Wait, where’re you going?” she latches onto his arm before he can lift himself off of her all the way.

His face is partially turned away, but she can see the shine in his eyes, the streaks down his face. He’s been crying. “Need to get something to clean us up,” he says gruffly.

“In a minute,” she insists, tugging him back down to the bed. “Hey... in a minute, okay?”

He follows her lead without too much argument, lying beside her as she runs his hand down his arm in an attempt to soothe him.

“You all right?” she asks finally, not sure what else to say. Is she supposed to pretend she doesn’t see the tears not yet dried on his cheeks?

He makes a face and scrubs them away. “M’fine.”

“Oh-kay,” she draws the word out, reaching out to cradle his jaw. “Just checkin’ on you.”

“It was a Whitesnake song,” he tells her, apropos of nothing. “That I was humming that day.”

She nods. “I remember you sayin’ that much.”

There’s a pause, followed by him taking in an unsteady breath. “It made me think of you. M’tryna… tryna remember how to words go,” he says, closing his eyes. “I just remember the chorus.”

“Tell it to me?” she asks, moving in closer until their heads are on the same pillow. She'd wanted this, so long ago, for Daryl to sing to her. She still wants to know it, wants to know every song that ever gets stuck in his head, wants to know every thought that ever runs through his mind.

His hand comes up to trail against her scalp, brushing his fingers through her hair until they come to lightly rest on the scar that represents the worst day of their lives. With him holding on to her and her holding on to him, he looks at her and whispers—doesn’t sing, because this is Daryl, and she knew all along that he probably wouldn’t. But he whispers, and she can imagine.

_“Is this love, that I’m feeling. Is this the love that I’ve been searching for. Is this love, or am I dreaming? This must be love, ’cause it’s really got a hold on me.”_

The words sound faintly familiar to her ears, and she thinks that it must’ve been on Maggie’s ex’s CD after all. But something more important is on her mind. “You were humming that way before the funeral home,” she realizes. _That was just after the moonshine shack... but it made you think of me._

“Yeah, I was,” he replies. His eyes are wet again as he leans in to brush his lips against her forehead. “I missed you.”

She’d suspected as much, from the funeral home— _“What changed your mind? …oh”_ —but to know that he’d felt that way even _before_ … “When?” she asks breathlessly. “Daryl, when?”

_How long have you loved me, Daryl?_

“Dunno,” he huffs out against her forehead. “The moonshine shack? You tellin’ me I’d miss you when you were gone? I _did_. I _have_.”

She pulls away from him, forces him to look her in the eye. He’s never been great with eye contact at the best of times, but he doesn’t shy away from her now, his piercing gaze going straight into her. “I missed you, too,” she murmurs, ducking forward to kiss him again. Her eyes are burning with the threat of tears for the first time in what feels like years, and she lets a few slip down her face as her lips meet his. But they aren’t desperate tears, they’re happy ones. She doesn’t need to sit and cry her heart out—she just needs to be here, with him.

He kisses back, a little more lazily this time. Not as though they have all the time in the world, because they don’t, and no one who isn’t a fool tempts fate that way anymore. But he kisses her as though he can expect her to be there in the morning. Because he _can_ , and she needs him to know that.

“Love you too, by the way,” she mumbles against him.

He straightens. The words _“never said that”_ are implied by the look on his face, though she's pretty sure he's just doing that to be obstinate.

“It was in the song,” she keeps her explanation brief, “just thought I’d tell you I feel the same way. And tell you that I’m not going anywhere ever again if I can help it.”

His body loses some of its tension, and, when he tries to get up again to find a washcloth to clean them up with, this time she lets him.

He’ll come back, and they’ll lie there together until they fall asleep, trading kisses until they can’t keep their eyes open. In the morning, they’ll go spend time with her family. Maybe Maggie will be okay with this, maybe she won’t—but Beth’s willing to bet she will be, since she just watched her sister come back from the dead.

There will be time enough to sit together and talk (and probably cry a whole lot more), but for now… they’re just gonna _be_. Be themselves, be together, be in love.

They’ve got a life to live. Maybe it won’t be very long, but it’ll be theirs, and it’ll be _together_.

Daryl crawls back into bed just as she’s edging towards sleep, but his hot breath against the back of her neck has her scooting backwards until her back meets his chest. He cleans them both up quickly and efficiently, and she hears the sound of him tossing the washcloth onto the floor carelessly. One of his arms goes around her waist, and she clutches tight to his hand where it rests on her belly. “Got a surprise for ya,” he mumbles against the shell of her ear.

The vibrations make her shudder, savoring the raspy, hoarse sound of his voice. She’s normally not one to think in terms like these, but he sounds utterly _fucked_. Still, she tries to focus on his words instead of his voice. “What’s that?” she murmurs sleepily.

The shine of steel in the lamplight is enough to force her eyes open a little more, and she finds a knife in his waiting hand. _Her_ knife, the one he gave her. The one she didn’t have when she woke up in the trunk. “You took it?” she asks, even though she’d always guessed so.

“Needed… something,” he says. “Something of yours.”

“It was yours first,” she points out.

She feels him shaking his head. “S’yours,” he swears. “Don’t matter who had it first. It’s always gonna be yours.”

_Like me._

Maybe he doesn’t say those words exactly—maybe that’s not even what he means—but it’s what she hears. She takes the knife gingerly from his hand and sets it on the bedside table, flicking the lamp off, then rolls over until they’re face-to-face. She gives him a gentle kiss, the gentlest one they’ve had by far, and wishes. She doesn’t know what she’s wishing for—for them to have never been split up, to have always had this, or maybe for this moment to last forever. Or maybe just for tomorrow, with him.

After a moment, they stop, breaking apart, and settle into each other’s arms. This feels right. It feels like home.

She hums.

“S’that?” he mumbles into her hair.

“Sorry. Just somethin’ in my head.”

He smiles, and she can feel it against the skin of her shoulder. “Go ahead an’ sing, then. Just until you’re ready to sleep. Ain’t like there’s a jukebox ’round here or nothin’.”

She’s about to protest, explain that she hasn’t sang in months, but then she realizes. For once, she actually feels like she can sing. She opens her mouth, and the first note cracks horribly, and she sounds terribly dry. But she knows Daryl won’t mind. So, she does. She sings.

 _"From this moment on I know exactly where my life will go. Seems like all I really was doing, was waiting for you. Don’t need to be alone, no need to be alone. It’s real love, it’s real love,"_ she sing-whispers.

His smile grows against her, and they go quiet.

“I got a guard shift tomorrow,” he says, voice so low she can barely hear him even tucked up against him. “You, uh, you wanna come with?”

Beaming, Beth cuddles in closer. “It’s a date.”

It’s a mark of how tired they both are that he doesn’t snort or protest at a term so juvenile as _date_. Instead, their breathing slowly evens out in harmony, and she feels him dip into sleep. He looks sweet when he sleeps, his lips slightly parted and his hair out of his face for once. He looks hopeful. Just as she’s approaching the brink of sleep herself, a new song comes into her head, one that she played once in a funeral home while he slept on the other side of the room.

_My love a beacon in the night, my words will be your light, to carry you to me. Is love alive? Is love alive? Is love alive?_

Love’s alive, she decides. And she’s home, and she’s with him, and she can sing again. She closes her eyes, the image of him still burned into the space behind her eyelids.

They rest.

**Author's Note:**

> The songs in this fic are, in order:  
> ["Be Good"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVudemQmgYM) by Emily Kinney  
> ["Winter Song"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=budTp-4BGM0) by Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson  
> ["Hold On"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkpaKx1UUUw) by Tom Waits  
> ["I'm On Fire"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzQvGz6_fvA) by Bruce Springsteen  
> ["Is This Love"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOJk0HW_hJw) by Whitesnake  
> ["Real Love"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZLYp-jgx-I) by Tom Odell
> 
> Other songs I couldn't manage to fit in this fic but that are _absolutely_ perfect for Bethyl:  
> ["Shelter From the Storm"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gsDBuHwqbM) by Bob Dylan, ["If I Should Fall Behind"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5spsKjK7j4) by Bruce Springsteen, ["What Have I Done"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTG1YWBFpA0) by Dermot Kennedy, ["You Were a Kindness"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnw_6YRMaUc) by The National, ["Without Fear"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4khYR7RR6A) by Dermot Kennedy, and ["Wherever This Goes"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgqhWqD1qe8) by The Fray
> 
> Thank you for reading! Feel free to leave a comment and let me know what you think :)


End file.
